OFF THE GRID LIVING by Swaminathan

There is no one magic "Big Button Solution" for this current situation, which is really really allarming. Wake Up ! We need to act right now at this very moment. As a good old saying says, small drops make mighty ocean. Even a little baby step conunts here. Let us team up together to fight against Global warming & pollution. I'm not here to say the effects of Global warming & pollution. But to show you how a tiny little step will have a massive impact. We need to look this issue from "grounds up" approach. So, let us start from our very own homes.

What is your electricity Bill amount ? Can you live for just 1 week with out electricity ? We will go crazy !! No Fan / Air conditioners. No TV/ Entertainment. No Food in refrigerator. No lighting. Not a good thing - right ? So let us go "OFF THE GRID LIVING" at least for domestic consumers. "OFF THE GRID LIVING"-What does this mean & how will I survive ? The first step is to reduce your energy needs. Example: Switching to Natural Day light instead of electric bulbs during the day time. And for night, use light fiber / light pipe (from 3M) illuminated will ultra efficient LED (From OSRAM) / Plasma bulb (from LUXIM) & even LED night lamps which consumes under 2 watts when compared to a so called "ZERO Watts" bulb which actually supposed to consume 15 watts, insted in my testing it sucked up to 22 Watts !!

Next is Kitchen: Switch to the most efficient ways of cooking. Use it appropriate. There is no one magic formula here too. Some will be cooked faster in a Pressure Cooker, where as some will be cooked much much faster in a Microwave & some directly on open gas flame. Choose it wisely. Even providing some standing time for the food items from refrigerator to stove will save drastically. Let us go back dated to grany's kitchen - remember the chimney ? Switch to this instead of electric ones.

Next is comfort with Air: We need air circulation. There are passive ways (no use of electricity or least electric assisted circulation) creating this. Look at the tunnel in Golconda fort in Hyderabad. No electricity, just you get a constant breeze, based on a natural phenemon called as "Natural draft". Even use Phase Change Materials (PCM) for passive cooling - remember the Drinking Duck toys in the good old child hood days ? Increase the humidity by using ultra sonic / passive wick humidifer on a colder day & reduce the humidity on a hotter day for comfortable living. Set your thermostats to 27 to 30 degrees centigrades instead of 18 C, along with use of a table fan. By doing this your actual compressor running time will be reduced to a lot, which means lesser bills. Keep your windows open for natural breeze. If needed add a exhaust fan to it which will force fresh out door air inside. We are humans & not measuring instruments.

We "FEEL" the temperature as a function of Heat + Humidity + Wind velocity. This is very important to understand the difference between measure & Feel like temperature. This is very simillar to Sound. We preseive the loudness at different levels than the measuring equipments. Even in home theators, we can have just 2 watts amplifier driving a 103 db/Watt speaker will make you deaf at mear 2% volume with in 1 minute. So, what I want to emphasis here is look for efficiency & dont just go by watts. It may happen your 100 Watt RMS amplifier will look much less louder if its driving an in-efficient speaker!

Let us look on the next need: The Refrigerator ! Its a 24 X 7 monster sucking power. Switch to energy efficient ones. Dont go by the star ratting. Insted look at the name plates on back of the product for Watts/ Hour. Lesser the better. If space is not a constraint, then try for deep freezer, which is far energy efficient because of their horizontal physical construction. Have you ever wondered, how the door less deep freezer in the super store /super mart works? The water: Preserve it like our blood. Do rain harvesting. Reuse / recycle the water as much as possible. Use our very one BARC's ultra filteration technology which works just by gravity - No electricity.Sun dry your cloths instead of fancy dryers on a sunny days. Do hand wash for a better physical excersise, less water & less electricity. The food (Vegis)- Grow your own at your roof top for a double shot ! Yes, you get Fresh fres Vegies & reduce your indoor Temp by 8 Degree C !! The wastes: The Vegi Food wastes are very good manure for your roof top garden. If we adopt all of these - guess what will be your energy needs per day ? Its less than 800 Watts per day !

Can mother nature feed it? Ofcourse yes. Look below.

Go Wind: Put a gear less roof top wind turbine (From Honeywell - www.rotatethewind.com)

Go Solar: Still not yet reached the main stream for comertials in India. T

he Gadgets: All gadgets manufacture (including Automobiles) should mention End of life & recycling methods in every product they make & provide at least 10 year warrenty for them.

What does this mean? You need not do frequent upgades + repiarable system + you know when you can expect a newer model - need a transpirancy for the consumers. Not a screet Apple Sause !

Packaging: USe least packaging for the shipping products. Health: Go Jogging / cycling instead of hi tech electric power Gym.